Macra? Macra? MACRA!?!?!?!
Apr. 15th, 2007 01:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
snorkackcatcherA few musings on tonight's ... er, last night's episode of Dr Who under the cut.
Well, that was ... strange. I have to give credit to Russell T Davies -- at first I thought the 'trapped on the motorway for years' plot was just a really corny joke, but in the end it did turn out to make sense, for some value of 'sense'. On reflection, the plot was definitely interesting, even if it did seem to have more loose ends than the back of the Bayeux Tapestry and more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire.
But ... Macra? I went "YES!" when that cropped up, but that's because I was sad enough to recognise the name and background -- not only is it a reference to a Two adventure from the 1960s, it's a reference to a lost Two adventure called The Macra Terror which probably hasn't been seen since the 1960s (I came across it on the Doctor Who Scripts Project listing -- sounds like it was a good one). Obviously Davies is doing the fan thing (as with the truncated and much less effective appearance by the Nestenes in the first Nine episode, echoing the first Three serial). One of the loose ends/plot holes in the latest story was that those inspirational broadcasts that have the locals teary-eyed fit nicely with the plot of the Two serial in which the Macra are brainwashing a colony, but don't make a lot of sense if they aren't. (Yes, I know it could be considered a spoiler to mention them in the post heading, but frankly they're obscure enough and sufficiently secondary to the main plot of this episode for me not to really mind that.)
Incidentally, does anyone have a feckin' clue what the Face of Boe plotline is all about? Is it just that I've missed something vital? It's good to see episodes setting things up for later or being part of an arc of more than one episode, because that didn't happen all that often in classic Who -- offhand, all I can think of are odd things like the one-off Dalek Cutaway One episode setting up the lengthy Dalek Masterplan serial, and in the Three era Frontier in Space setting up Planet of the Daleks. I'm looking forward to seeing where the Doctor meets Queen Elizabeth I for the first time ... er, second time ... oh, whatever. One of the hazards of time travel. :)
Well, that was ... strange. I have to give credit to Russell T Davies -- at first I thought the 'trapped on the motorway for years' plot was just a really corny joke, but in the end it did turn out to make sense, for some value of 'sense'. On reflection, the plot was definitely interesting, even if it did seem to have more loose ends than the back of the Bayeux Tapestry and more holes than Blackburn, Lancashire.
But ... Macra? I went "YES!" when that cropped up, but that's because I was sad enough to recognise the name and background -- not only is it a reference to a Two adventure from the 1960s, it's a reference to a lost Two adventure called The Macra Terror which probably hasn't been seen since the 1960s (I came across it on the Doctor Who Scripts Project listing -- sounds like it was a good one). Obviously Davies is doing the fan thing (as with the truncated and much less effective appearance by the Nestenes in the first Nine episode, echoing the first Three serial). One of the loose ends/plot holes in the latest story was that those inspirational broadcasts that have the locals teary-eyed fit nicely with the plot of the Two serial in which the Macra are brainwashing a colony, but don't make a lot of sense if they aren't. (Yes, I know it could be considered a spoiler to mention them in the post heading, but frankly they're obscure enough and sufficiently secondary to the main plot of this episode for me not to really mind that.)
Incidentally, does anyone have a feckin' clue what the Face of Boe plotline is all about? Is it just that I've missed something vital? It's good to see episodes setting things up for later or being part of an arc of more than one episode, because that didn't happen all that often in classic Who -- offhand, all I can think of are odd things like the one-off Dalek Cutaway One episode setting up the lengthy Dalek Masterplan serial, and in the Three era Frontier in Space setting up Planet of the Daleks. I'm looking forward to seeing where the Doctor meets Queen Elizabeth I for the first time ... er, second time ... oh, whatever. One of the hazards of time travel. :)
